Hiking Bukhansan

I (Chris) went hiking at the Bukhansan National Park north of Seoul with Mark, one of our coworkers.  We left English Village at 8:30am and made our way by taxi, bus, and subway to get to the park around 11:30am.  It took longer than we expected to get there.

Chris at the bottom of the 

mountain

On our way we met three Canadians who were there with their father/husband on business and were touring the area.  We had a nice chat with them and their Korean businessman tour-guide along the way and gave them a few tips that Koreans would probably not know (not being tourists or visitors in their own country).  We also had an interesting encounter at a bank when we stopped to get some money out.  Our bank had system crash and we were unable to get any money out of our accounts.  This is not encouraging, and they said it "might"  be up by noon the next day. It's rather scary to realize that even though we have money we cannot access it at the moment. Happily, I don't need to access it now though.

When we got to our subway exit we looked around and saw a gaggle of Koreans dressed in hiking gear.  Koreans seem to have a designated look for hiking.  Ajumas (literal translation: grandmothers, but used politely for all women over the age of 60ish) always wear a sun shield visor (sometimes looking like some kind of Darth Vader helmet), a wind breaker, and hiking boots/shoes.  The colors change, but the look is always the same.  Men and younger Koreans of all ages wear similar outfits, but we saw mostly ajumas around since we went on a Wednesday.

Some information about ajumas.  They say there are two kinds of ajumas: tough ajumas, and tougher ajumas.  They aren't joking.  Ajumas basically run Korea and I am convinced the country would collapse into chaos within 24 hours if the ajumas stopped working.  Ajumas do almost all the cooking and cleaning in Korea, in addition to often running the family and many other tasks.  We hiked with several ajumas as we went and they have a pretty good endurance for hiking, especially considering their age.

I enjoyed hiking up the mountain, but I will confess I am in much worse shape than I had thought.  I had to stop repeatedly for breaks so that my legs would be able to go up more stone stairs and dirt paths.  We hiked about 3km up to two peaks, and then about the same distance back down.  It doesn't sound like that much, but it was quite the work out (for me at least).  The mountain had numerous little pink flower-shrubs growing on it and I took several pictures of them, although I had to fight my camera's auto-focus to get some good ones as it kept trying to focus behind the flowers.  The scenery was quite beautiful as well, although not as colorful as in the U.S. and there was a constant haze.  I have posted the pictures on my facebook page for those who want to view them.

When we got to the first peak, we had to climb up a rock face with stone steps carved into it and hold onto a steel cable to get to the top.  The view was great, although hazy.  I am not sure which peaks we reached the top of, but they are all between 700-840 meters.  Unfortunately, I was thinking feet instead of meters when I was planning this hike.  That was part of the reason I was a bit unprepared for the hike.  I thought 800 feet, no problem, but the actual height was closer to 3000 feet.

After we reached the first peak, we decided to continue to the next as it looked pretty close and not too much more uphill hiking.  Happily, we were right.  This peak was nicer and much larger.  The first was more like a large boulder sitting on top of a mountain, whereas the second was a large area that even had some trees on it. We could see a reasonable distance, but the haze prevented a truly breathtaking view.  I noticed in the distance a buildng with what looked like a giant man sitting on top of it.  I have no idea what this is as we never made it to the building during our hike.  Maybe I will get another chance if I go again.

Giant Man

After reaching the second peak we hiked downward along another branch of the same trail and visited a Buddhist temple in the area.  It was interesting to see, but idolatry always bothers me and makes me sad that so many people do not know the truth about Jesus and that these idols are just manmade junk.  We don't see a lot of this here in Korea, but it is present.  Visiting the temple also allowed us to let the youths who were hiking at the same pace as us get ahead of us.  They were playing Korean pop music from some electronic gadget as they were hiking, and neither of us particularly wanted to listen to K-pop while hiking.  We enjoyed the relative quite and lack of city sounds there.

Mark at the temple

After the hike Mark and I split up and I headed to Costco to pick up some items we needed and then headed for home.  It was a good trip, and I am happy to report that I am far less sore than I had expected to be today.  God is good!